My name is Tara and I’m an…

I’ve been in the AA rooms a lot lately and I can say those are my people. Anyone in recovery who can admit they have a need for help is my kinda person.

There’s an of argument that I wanna call out.

It’s similar to one that had me almost walk away from the church pnly as I was just getting in deep. I couldn’t wrap my mind around some contradictions I saw in the Bible. Can one have security in their salvation vs one losing their salvation. Like if someone relapses back into drugs or sin are they still saved or do they lose their salvation (make it even more difficult: maybe they were never actually saved in the first place).

The argument I wanna call out when it comes to addiction recovery is “once an addict, always an addict” versus ”free from drug/in recovery”.

For years I’ve heard people bash the statement “once an addict, always an addict” saying we’re no longer addicts.

But just because I don’t identify as an addict or alcoholic anymore doesn’t mean I can drink socially or just smoke some gonja. In AA they talk about the first step is being honest. Later on they talk about an intense, constant honesty to keep you sober. I think it is important to have your identity on the right track, not label your entire self as an addict. I also think being honest about what your flesh is drawn to: drugs and alcohol is just as important.

That being said, my name is Tara and I’m a great believer in Jesus Christ. I am recovering from drugs and alcohol. I am an alcoholic and addict who has security in my salvation (even if I relapse). I can lose my salvation even if I am secure.

I think of salvation as choosing to allow God to be my father. If Stella is my daughter, how can she lose her relationship her mom? Maybe if she ostracized herself from me or stopped wanting me in her life. That’s the only way… if she allowed me in her life I wouldnt abandon her. Even if she chose sin and drugs and anything else. I’d love her and try to help her see the light at the end of the tunnel.

From Living Sober:

“Oh, of course, many of us had periods when, for some months or even years, we sometimes thought the drinking had sort of straight- ened itself out. We seemed able to maintain a pretty heavy alcohol intake fairly safely. Or we would stay sober except for occasional drunk nights, and the drinking was not getting noticeably worse, as far as we could see. Nothing horrible or dramatic happened.
However, we can now see that, in the long or short haul, our drink- ing problem inevitably got more serious.
Some physicians expert on alcoholism tell us there is no doubt that alcoholism steadily grows worse as one grows older. (Know anyone who isn’t growing older?)
We are also convinced, after the countless attempts we made to prove otherwise, that alcoholism is incurable—just like some other ill- nesses. It cannot be “cured” in this sense: We cannot change our body chemistry and go back to being the normal, moderate social drinkers lots of us seemed to be in our youth.
As some of us put it, we can no more make that change than a pickle can change itself back into a cucumber. No medication or psychologi- cal treatment any of us ever had “cured” our alcoholism.”